Giant Ideas

After more than 50 episodes interviewing founders, investors and leaders, Giant co-founders Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain turn the mic on themselves to ask what the best entrepreneurs have in common.

From resilience, storytelling, obsession and self-awareness, to the power of control. They speak about:
Cameron's four founder traits, and why three out of four is the bar
Why Tommy added control to his list (and what Alex Ferguson has to do with it)
Producing under fire vs simply enduring
The case for benign dictatorship in early-stage companies
"Trauma showcasing" in pitch meetings, and what drives founders
The four burners: what founders give up, and why the greats might not call it sacrifice
Why intelligence might not make the top three
Agentic founders, 16-year-olds pitching from Sweden and 10-person teams building huge revenue...
Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.
Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, to talk about what the first internet boom can tell us about this one.
Steve started AOL in 1985, when 3% of people were online. He took it public in 1992 as the first internet company to list, and now runs Revolution, the firm behind Rise of the Rest and more than 200 investments across 100 American cities. 

Cameron McLain talks to Steve about why AOL raised just $10 million over seven years (while today's AI companies are seeded with a billion), why he still thinks the Time Warner merger was the right call, and why he thinks AI needs to be very carefully deployed to avoid a revolution.
He speaks about:
The nine years it took AOL to reach a million users (ChatGPT took three months)
Arguing with IBM and Apple about whether to build modems into computers
Being 26 and taking on AT&T, GE and Microsoft with just $10 million
Whether he'd do the Time Warner merger again
The industries AI can't disrupt
Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.
Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup and the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange.
Eric wrote the book that taught a generation of founders how to build under uncertainty, and he has spent the years since trying to fix what happens to those companies once they grow.

His new book, Incorruptible, is about a double mystery: why successful companies so often get ruined, and why a handful avoid that fate.

Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain talk to Eric about why he thinks the best practices of modern corporate governance destroy value, why he believes a strong founder is not enough to protect a company, and what he'd change about The Lean Startup if he could go back.
Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.
Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back with Michael Moritz, the Sequoia investor who backed Google, Yahoo and PayPal, to talk about his family and his latest book.
Moritz has written a memoir, Ausländer, out in the US this month. It began with papers found when they cleared out their mother's house in Wales, and grew into an account of how his grandparents were murdered and how his father got out during the Nazi Regime.
We talk to him about what he found in the archives, why he thinks a stable society is a much more fragile thing than most people assume, his experience of anti-semitism, and if he thinks Silicon Valley is befriending Trump (and what he thinks of the US president).
Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.
Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Michael Moritz, the former chairman of Sequoia Capital, one of the most successful venture capitalists of all time.
Michael Moritz is a venture capitalist and philanthropist renowned for backing early tech giants like Google, PayPal, and YouTube during his 38-year career, first as Partner then Chairman of the firm. 
Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Michael about why he thinks the first 16 years of a founder's life tell you more than you can find anywhere is, why he still wears the cap of the company that lost Sequoia more money than any other, and why he shivered every time anyone called Sequoia an institution.
He speaks about:
the phone call that brought Sequoia to Google
why he asks founders about their first 15 or 16 years
meeting the Collison brothers at 20 and 18, and what was obvious within minutes
why founding pairs make each other better
why Bill Gates took the radio taken out of his Mercedes 
the $44m Webvan loss, and going back to the same idea 20 years later as Instacart
and lots more...
Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.
Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.